On the void to be filled

I went to bed on the June 23rd halfway across the world from a country I could barely recognise. The shock of Brexit was unbearable. It had me remember a friend who had once told me that it was probably for the best that I had left London for Berlin a few years earlier. He told me that the sentiment across the UK had become so disturbing that my faith in the good nature of my countrymen was naive and invited complacency.

I never believed him.

I still find it hard to comprehend just how the despicable caricatures of Nigel Farage, Katie Hopkins, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove had fooled anyone into thinking that Britain leaving the European Union was a viable option for a nation that once bred heroes. This was cowardice.

But then after the initial paralysis and denial wore off, I realised I was still here, still a citizen, and not a moment longer could be afforded to indifference. Not against the coming fallout — Scotland reigniting their own referendum, the ramifications for the Northern Ireland peace settlement and the hundreds of thousands of individuals and businesses who will be hit economically. Personally, as a British citizen who has lived across Europe, owns a business and is politically active, I saw the decision to act as inevitable.

I urged anyone who would listen to stand back up. I urged myself to stand with them.

British politics has always been something of a private yet closely held concern of mine. A concern however that most recently had been dismissed as background noise to the more pressing trials of running a technology company. But then on that day in June, I found myself sat in a hotel room staring blankly at the passing of a moment of history in which I was on the losing side. That, I realised, is what complacency looks like.

The price of democracy is eternal vigilance. The reaction to political loss, any loss, should never be despair but renewed action and responsibility. Letters & Code therefore is my attempt to use the one thing I have any ability with, words, and in some way act to help fill the void with reasoned voices.